9-11 April, 1999
School of Theater Film and Television
UCLA, Los Angeles

During the final session of this Conference, the following exchange took place between Judy Burns (University of California at Riverside) and Professor Henry Breitrose (Stanford University):

 

Judy Burns:    Last year, I had a shy scriptwriting student who never spoke in class, but would talk freely to me in my office. When I got him online, suddenly he was no longer inhibited and became the leader of the class…this is a very individualised media we are dealing with…

 

Henry Breitrose:        I have e-mail discussions with all the classes I teach and one of the problems, especially in large lecture classes, is getting people to participate in discussions. This is particularly the case where there seems to be a cultural problem or taboo. But put these people online and there is no stopping them…

 

These anecdotal comments are supported by many with experience in online learning. As film and television schools develop online courses, there will be similar surprises.

But delegates were cautionary about what to put online. There are clearly many areas of that process - particularly collaborative process and location and studio work - that might never be suited to the online world.

 

The Conference spent one day examining the existing online courses offered by film and television schools. The second day was spent discussing – and dreaming about – a world where “all things were possible”: the world of “big pipes”, “fat files” and “collaborative software tools” that would enable online editing, online soundtrack laying and music recording and online mixing. More ambitious thinking ran to sensors embedded in television cameras allowing people with computers at home to physically change shots in a studio somewhere else in the world.

 

Delegates, however, were loath to see online film and television training as simply a matter of transplanting their existing curriculum into online curriculum. Rather, most concluded film and television should devise new curriculum for the online domain and reach out to those for whom traditional film and television was either impractical (such as industry practitioners, remote communities, adolescents) or impossible (countries where no film and television training exists).

 

 

ii

 

 

 

Globalization and National Cinemas

 

The globalization issues associated with multinational strategic partnerships between  content providers and online delivers (such as Time Warner/America Online) can result in $US350 billion deals. Or Rupert Murdoch’s satellite “footprint” across the population of China (1.3 billion), which raise serious concerns about the homogenization of culture and the potential “control” over news and political thought.

 

There is not much doubt that the Internet is a significant and wide-reaching development in communications technology. The paradox of the World Wide Web’s democratization of access to information is counter-balanced by the spectre of centralized ownership and control over significant content and intellectual property.

 

Online education is already firmly established in the United States and growing at appreciable rates in many other countries of the world. What does online film and television training mean for National Cinemas? Will the marketplace become so globalised, cinema will be “dumbed-down” to the point where regional differences will loose their character and their cultural specificity?

 

These are questions that are easy to ask, but hard to answer. Of two facts, however, we can be sure.

 

(a)                Digital technology and delivery “architecture” such as the Internet is in a phase of exponential development. It will become far more powerful in the next ten years than anything we have seen in its first ten years. If national identities and national cinemas are at risk from these developments, turning our backs and wringing our hands will not help. Film schools will only aid the negative effects of globalization by standing back and bemoaning global market forces. Understanding the technology and ensuring it works to the benefit of national cinemas is the only option worth taking.

 

(b)               Online film and television education is about access and the democratization of the learning experience. Our schools are “elite” institutions. The high

overhead costs of film and television education and the intensive student-teacher relationship mean most of us reject three or four times the number of applicants who are successful for our courses. As a teacher at New York University recently put it: “We have over a thousand students. Fifteen of them might turn out to be Spike Lee. But if we went down into the Subway and picked up the first fifteen young guys, they are just as likely to turn out to be Spike Lee as well”.

iii

 

 

Film and Television schools must find ways to bring their courses online and expand their potential markets – particularly with adolescents. Only by supporting the benefits of national cinemas and using the very technologies that may erode them, do we have a chance of maintaining our unique and distinctive national cultures.

 

Technologies

 

Recently, I was asked to prepare a presentation to the Prime Minister of Australia and his Science Council. The topic is “The Effect of New Technologies on the Australian Film Industry”. During several months of consultation with the industry in Australia (feature film, advertising, corporate and television) to has become very clear that countries like Australia can only compete in the globalized marketplace of the future by using telecommunications to its own advantage.

 

This means the ability to shift digitized material (images and sound) from country to country using broadband and/or satellite technology. A country such as Australia can therefore use its geographical location (previously a liability) as a distinct advantage. Living in the “downunder” timezone (5 to 7 hours from the West Coast of America and 13-15 hours from Europe), it becomes possible to work productions – whether feature films, television or advertising – on a virtual 24 hour clock. Rushes or assemblies can be digitized and sent to other countries for approval, or further work, while the home country sleeps. When starting work the following morning, the material has been returned and the production process continues.

 

Surprisingly, the feature film, television and advertising industries claim such technology is available now. What prohibits expansion into such global online production is simply the cost of telecommunications. One digital post-production house in Sydney (Academy Award nominees for The Matrix) claims the cost of telecommunications between Australia and the U.S.A. can be more than the production costs of the work.

 

Shifting compressed image files and sound files around the world is a miniscule proportion of international traffic on broadband and satellite. In this, lies the “rub”. Australian telecommunications companies are regularly making $2 billion profit each year. Lowering the cost of international communications for the film industry is not only absent from their “mindsets”, it doesn’t even come close to being included in their business models.

 

The only short-term answer may be government regulation, a very difficult but perhaps necessary objective for National Cinemas of the future.

 

Such problems will directly effect the ability of online film schools to achieve a true “global reach”.

 

iv

 

And there are other factors which will impact on “online delivery” in the future.

 

E-Cinema and Digital Projection

 

The most recent examples of Digital Projection, usually in cinemas no larger than 300 seats, is outstanding. The clarity and resolution are often regarded as better than film projection and comments such as “crisper and clearer than film” and “so clear I didn’t know where to look next” suggest the change to e-cinema is closer than we think.

 

Episodes II and III of Star Wars will be shot on digital cameras and distributed to

digital projection cinemas. The producer Rick McCallum estimates 500 digital projection cinemas in the USA by 2002 and more than 3,000 by the time Episode III is available. The effects on the exhibition and distributions may well be profound.

 

McCallum believes these episodes of Star Wars will be delivered by satellite or disk directly into the digital projection cinemas or into home cinemas. HDTV will reportedly have a better picture quality than 70mm film, making the home environment a major alternative to the cinema. Such processes will usher in a whole new deal for film producers – greatly increasing their “cut” of the take.

 

McCallum believes production financing will also be fundamentally changed. Increased use of broadband technology will deepen what we now know as co-productions. Instead of simply “co-producing” with financing, two or more countries will collaborate synchronously on many areas of pre-production and all areas of post-production. As such, global financing will change the traditional reliance on vast production centres such as Hollywood.

 

Thus, online film and television training is often inextricably linked to online production and the global marketplace. The commercial factors, currently represented by the gold rush of e-commerce, are likely impact on any Cilect School developing online training for the film and television industries.

 

IDL Conference

Delegates

 

More than sixty delegates attended during the three days. The audience was predominantly American, but others included five delegates from the National Film and Television School of England; nine delegates from Australia including four from the Australian Film Television and Radio School; Fruto Corre from the Film Centre, University of the Philippines; Fabian Hofman from Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica in Mexico; Dr. Victor T. Valbuena from Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore and Malte Wadman from the Norwegian Film and Television School.

 

 

iv

 

 

 

Sessions

 

The conference sessions consisted of:

 

1.         Keynote Address

2.         Web Sites and Other On-line Activity

3.         Online Film and Television

4.         Cyberport One

5.         Marketing Interactive Distance Learning

6.         Engineers and Content Providers

7.         An Interactive Future (wrap-up)

 

Outcomes

 

A major outcome from the Conference was the formation of the Global Film School, an online film school consortium being developed by the Australian Film Television and Radio School, the National Film and Television School of England and the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television. The idea of such a consortium arose during the conference and was officially announced in December 1999. The Global Film School expects to be offering online courses by November 2000.

 

The website is: www.globalfilmschool.com

 

 

 

 

Rod Bishop

Project Chair IDL

Director, Australian Film Television and Radio School